Resupply Craft Heads for Station

Space & Earth science / Space Exploration

Artist's rendering of the International Space Station showing the ISS Progress 26, the ISS Progress 25 and a Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station. Image credit: NASA TV

The ISS Progress 26 (P26) craft launched Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:34 p.m. EDT. The P26 vehicle is loaded with 5,111 pounds of food, fuel, air, water and supplies. P26 is scheduled to dock with the station on Aug. 5.

On the station, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Olog Kotov reconfigured the Kurs automated rendezvous system in the Zvezda Service Module in preparation for the P26 docking.

Wednesday’s undocking of the ISS Progress 24 (P24) was successfully completed at 10:07 a.m. Configuration issues resulted in the Progress not doing the separation burn, but the deorbit burn occurred on time. P24 was about four miles from the station when the deorbit burn began a little after 2:40 p.m. Wednesday, sending the Progress and its load of trash to destruction in the Earth's atmosphere.

Flight Engineer Clay Anderson conducted routine periodic inspections of the station's smoke detectors Thursday and Kotov did routine air sampling in the station. Yurchikhin and Anderson continued to pack items no longer needed on the station for return aboard space shuttle Endeavour during its STS-118 mission. Anderson also held a conference with the STS-118 crew to discuss spacewalk preparations.

Source: NASA

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